The Foreign Service Journal, September 2013

52 SEPTEMBER 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL While my dissent did not formally change any policies at AFRICOM, it helped uniformed and civilian personnel realize that it was important to propose appropriate interventions on the continent and not blindly follow orders from people with no experience in Africa. What was the impact of the dissent and the dissent award on your career? Soon after receiving the dissent award I found myself being congratulated by people at USAID who were impressed that I had stood up to a high-ranking military official. I know that I was not penalized for my actions: just six months later, I was named USAID mission director to the DRC. And the following summer, I was promoted into the Senior Foreign Service. However, for the remaining year at AFRICOM, whenever I pushed back on misguided ideas, the generals would make critical remarks and remind me that I was not at USAID or State, where dissent was allowed. They tried to muzzle my responses, including during a Congressional Research Service review of our programs. However, my decision had a big impact on a number of uniformed personnel, who felt emboldened to push for what was right rather than immediately kowtow to authority. I remain convinced that just because I did the right thing, I probably did not deserve any special credit. I have always felt that maintaining one’s integrity is paramount, and I feel deeply privileged that AFSA recognized my dissent. I keep the award at home, where I can see it daily as I consider how best to continue to provide the field perspective during the sometimes challeng- ing interagency discussions on the appropriate diplomatic and development agenda for the DRC. n Dr. Diana Putman is a career Senior Foreign Service officer who has been with USAID since 1983, serving in Indonesia, Tunisia, Tanzania and the regional USAID offices in Kenya and Jordan, as well as in Washington, D.C., with the Newly Independent States Task Force and the West-Bank Gaza Task Force. She also took leave to do research in Japan, received a master’s degree in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, and served on detail from USAID to the U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart for three years. She has received the Secretary’s Award for Heroism (after the bombing in Dar es Salaam in 1998) and the Praxis Award for Applied Anthropology. She is currently USAID mission director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Dean Kaplan W. Averell Harriman Award, 2003 Regarding Nigeria and Extradition Briefly describe the dissent that your AFSA award rec- ognized. In 2000, as a first-tour officer in Nigeria, I dissented on an extradition case. The government of Nigeria had gener- ously offered the United States 48 hours to take custody of four criminal suspects whose extradition the U.S. had been seeking for five years. The United States accepted the offer, even though the full legal extradition process would not be completed. I questioned the wisdom of circumventing the judicial extradi- tion process, ask- ing how expedi- ency in the area of law enforcement could be recon- ciled with the mission’s explicit commitment to help Nigeria build greater respect for the rule of law. Did your dis- sent lead to any change in policy? It did. First, I argued the case through the embassy chain of command. When that did not succeed, I drafted a dissent cable arguing for a change of policy that would emphasize legal extradition as the means of access to criminal suspects in Nigeria. That cable was never sent, because with the arrival of our new ambassador came an opportunity to make my case again, and this time it was accepted and moved on to Washington. A new policy was in place by the time the next suspects were offered by the Nigerian authorities, and the full extradition process was completed. What was the impact of the dissent on your career? There was certainly no negative impact I could ascer- tain. That said, even had there been one, I would have done “I keep the award at home, where I can see it daily as I consider how best to continue to provide the field perspective.” –Diana Putman Dean Kaplan with his daughter Aliya.